Chinese Year of the Hare

Persons born in the Year of the Hare (1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011) are talented and ambitious. They are popular, entertaining, and often the center of attention. Even though they are well-liked they can be melancholy. They almost never lose their temper and are very good-natured. In the business world they instinctively make right decisions. Nevertheless they are not gamblers. Hares are known for their sense of art and for this reason they often have beautiful homes.


Image: Leenda K.

Tan Lines IX

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Sign for the East

The hare is common in the Yangtze basin and the northern regions [of China].

C. A. S. Williams, in The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, notes that the hare “is an emblem of longevity, often depicted on porcelain, and it represents the fourth of the Twelve Terrestial Branches. This animal is reputed as deriving its origin from the vital essence of the Moon to the influence of which luminary it is consequently subject.”

The Twelve Terrestial Branches are the twelve signs of the Chinese solar zodiac which contains six wild and six domestic animals. The hare is the sign for the East which coincides with the Second Moon; and it also gives its name to The Year of the Hare.

– Excerpted from The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson (Faber and Faber, 1972), p.117.


Image: “Magpies and Hare” by Tsui Bai.

Morning Light XIX

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Magical Creatures

Hares and rabbits have long-standing associations with spring, especially the month of March. Both hares and rabbits are lagomorphs (not rodents) and are usually interchangeable for magical purposes.

. . . Many spells and charms draw on the power of these magical creatures. A lucky rabbit’s foot is merely the most famous example. In China, one might carry a green jade rabbit for luck. The fur of a live hare can empower spells for invisibility or speed. Rabbit or hare emblems often appear in rituals for fertility or virility.

Some believe eating hare or rabbit meat makes them become beautiful or romantically desirable. Though taboo in some cultures, hunting rabbits and hares was often allowed for spring holidays, such as Ostara and Beltane. This is undoubtedly related to the near-coinciding fertility festivals.

Altogether, hares and rabbits represent the burgeoning life force of spring, with its boundless exuberance and fruitfulness. Bringing them into your life helps attract these qualities.

- Elizabeth Barrette
(Excerpted from Llewellyn’s Witches’ Calendar 2009)


Image: Detail of “I’m for the Hare that Runs by Night” (digital paint, 2003), part of Martin Herbert’s Totem Animal Series.

Tan Lines VIII

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.

Affirming Our Essential Goodness

The following is excerpted from Toby Johnson’s book, Gay Spirituality, and focuses on “gay mystical consciousness.”

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Gay identity gives witness to mystical ideals. The deliberate choice to live in the present, accepting death with no pretense of immortality through offspring, affirms that we live in the eternal moment. Saying yes to mortality practices detachment from ego. Transcending ego allows us to realize our oneness with greater consciousness, with life.

As we realize this, we see that only our ego will die. Life goes on. And so we overcome death to the extent we overcome attachment to [the ego]. To see that you are the universe is to see that you cannot die. To see that the universe mirrors you, and is you, is the essence of homosexual attraction.

In the old days, being gay was something people kept secret. For that reason, homosexuality provided a sense of specialness. It was like membership in a special club. That has changed. And that’s good. Though there is still something special about being gay, and there is still a certain amount of persecution that goes with specialness.

We do not need any more martyrs, though we shall likely get them. There are people who carry deep scars that cause them to hate us. They project their own self-hate and sexual confusion onto us. They blame us for all the problems of society. They blame the collapse of tradition values on us. They think that by persecuting us they are somehow dealing with child abuse and broken families. And they create a climate in which violence against homosexuals seems almost patriotic.

Crimes committed against homosexuals are crimes against citizens and cannot be tolerated. . . .

When people are jealous of you and resent what you’ve got, you know you’ve got a treasure. If not, they wouldn’t bother with you, would they?

Accepting things as they are necessarily includes accepting the opposition we face. It also includes striving to create a world in which such violence does not happen. Until then, we must not let the opposition stop us. We must not let ourselves be frightened out of the truth of who we are.

We understandably downplay our experience of being gay. We emphasize the suffering and social difficulties we face. . . . We [do this] to avoid retaliation from the straight people who do not want us proclaiming how lucky we are. We keep a low profile. We poor mouth. But we must tell ourselves the truth about our good luck. We must tell our brothers. This is the good news, the boom of our hero journey, that can save us and them.

We have to believe that being in the altered state of sexual consciousness is a good thing. Any other position is self-defeating. We can create our lives so that this is true. We can take care of ourselves. We can maintain our health and vitality, the glow in our complexion and the flexibility in our muscles. We can protect ourselves from disease. We can work on our moral and psychological well-being, letting go of neurotic behaviors and compulsions. We can cultivate good friendships. We can have positive and delightful sexplay with willing, enthusiastic partners. We can have deep, committed, long-term sexual partnerships. In all these we can affirm our essential goodness.

– Excerpted from Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness by Toby Johnson (Alyson Books, 2000, pp.264-265).

Different Names

The following is excerpted from The Hare by Jill Mason.

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Few animals can have been given as many different names as the hare. Some are very localized and often the hare’s alternative names are associated with cats. This is thought to be because both cats and hares have been linked with witches, as their familiars. Another possibility is that a hare has a split upper lip, similar to that of a cat.

In Wales many of the old names for hares include “cath,” which is the word for cat in Welsh. The old Scots word for a Mountain hare was “malkin,” “mawkin,” or “maukin,” but this does not seem to be in use today. However, there is a country inn in Glen Devon called The Tormaukin which has a sign depicting two Mountain hares with the mountains in the background. Tor means hill.

In some areas of Scotland, hares are known as “fite” hares, fite being the word for white in local dialect. The word “baud” or “bawd” referred to hare in Norfolk. “Wat” or “watt” is another old Norfolk name for a hare. Part of the insignia for the town of Watton in Norfolk depicts a hare (or wat) jumping over a “tun,” an old name for a barrel. The Hare and Barrel is also the name of a pub in Watton. Shakespeare referred to the hare as a “wat,” a term which has also been used in Cornwall.



Many village signs in Norfolk portray features of local interest. The one at Harpley shows a pheasant, hare, and corn. Place names beginning with “Har” sometimes indicate a connection with the hare, so Harpley may well have got its name from the abundance of hares that surround it.

Morning Light XVIII

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

"Don’t Fence Me In"

The following is excerpted from poet and essayist Thomas March’s review of Cathy Crimmins’ book, How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization.

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The only thing inherently gay about any of my tastes is that I require – I insist – that the person I am dating be male. As soon as we insist that a behavior or a taste or an attitude is inherently “gay,” we’re implying that it’s unavailable for a straight man to accept as part of his system of sensibilities. Establishing such a barrier restricts gay men, too – and promotes the same kind of thinking that reinforces negative stereotypes, not just the lovely myth of the well-groomed gay man.

Early in [her] book, Crimmins tells a story about shopping with her daughter and a gay teenage boy who finds her daughter a beautiful dress and then remarks about himself that he “fulfilled [his] function as a gay man.” He laughed, and I hope he really was being ironic. It looks like that kid could make a great personal shopper or have a very successful career in fashion. And good for him, if that’s what he wants. But there are many ways to fulfill one’s function as a gay man. We’re cops and construction workers, too; we don’t just dress up like them. A gay kid needs to know that if he wants to, he can be a good gay man without always helping people pick out clothes. As we’ve learned, it might be hard to be a gay cowboy, but the first step is to say, “Don’t fence me in.”

– Thomas March (The Gay and Lesbian Review, May-June, 2006)

Symbol of Enlightenment

The following is excerpted from The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson.

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The hare is a symbol of enlightenment, not only of the spirit but of the dawn, the dawn of the day and the dawn of the year which we call spring.

The ancient Egyptian hieroglyph – a picture of a hare – stood for the auxiliary verb “to be,” but auxiliary verbs come late in the development of language and all are derived from words of independent sense. The Egyptian “to be” was associated with creation and had the senses of being, existing, and persisting, which are in mythology often represented by the hare.


Image: Mark Bakker.

Morning Light XVII

Subject: Simon Czaplinski.
Photographer: Paul Reitz.